But, of course, it's "Voluntary" Mary Shapiro heading the SEC: she's never been contrary toward her Wall St beaux. There is, after all, no suggestion that Too Big To Prosecute has been abandoned.

Also, you should not neglect JPM's "pay the fine, do no time" moral decrepitude, more of which may receive airing now that a settlement has appeared on the near-term horizon in the matter of the bankruptcy of WaMu's holding company WMI.

If you like that, go pick up the newest issue of Popular Science and look at the page immediately facing the second page of the table of contents. One big full-page ad on how Goldman Sachs's investment in Kansas City's big stadium leads to innumerable support jobs around the stadium. And how much do you want to bet that Merritt Paulson keeps sending that ad to Sam Adams, whining about getting his new stadium?

So after all of the garbage Paulsen did within his one week (kill Lehman his competitor, two days later keep GOldman alive and then the next day keep AIG alive to funnel $15B to Goldman) its not enough.

This is the standard spin model. You don't look at the reasons we're in Iraq - you narrow the focus down to the surge and redefine the debate. Is the surge working? The surge is working. Why did you lie us into Iraq? The surge is working. Meanwhile we're still in Iraq.
You don't want us looking at the massive fraud in the derivatives markets - calling shaky mortgage loans Triple A and then selling them. It's FRAUD. It's like a gas station selling you swamp water as premium gasoline. They'd go to jail for that. You won't.

But just in case, you focus down on the Big Short - whether you bet against these fraudulent instruments YOU created or not.
Redefine the issue, bog down the debate, crash the country, swoop in to be the saviors, then rip us off even worse.

Get your kid a soccer team, and wait to see if you're indicted. Then when it's safe, creep back out, pimp your book, and start reshaping history. Don't wait too long to redefine the truth. You were not one of the biggest crooks in history. You were a victim. No, wait, you were a hero. The surge is working! The surge is working!

Turn away from the nauseating crowd and consider a contemporary tale of dragon slaying:

"Nate Thoma stood up in a Delaware bankruptcy court last December in a sharkskin suit and delivered a 24-minute argument that changed the course of one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history.

The 33-year-old Washington Mutual investor, with no legal experience, delivered what people in the courtroom called an unusually eloquent speech, helping persuade the judge to investigate trading by some of the nation's biggest hedge funds and to reject a plan for the bank's exit from bankruptcy.

"Mr. Thoma says he is still obsessed with the case, and his wife has banned Washington Mutual from household conversations.

But this battle is likely to be his last. He says that despite his success, his experience has left him disillusioned.

'The thrill is gone,' he says. 'It's such a big game, [individuals] just can't compete. I'm picking up freelance Web work again.'"

Of course, Mr Thoma's work has been concerned only with events after the theft of $307 billion of solvent WaMu's assets through the coordinated efforts of Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson, Jr, the FDIC's Sheila Bair, and JPM's Jamie Dimon. The takedown in 2008 was described under oath last year by the head of TARP in Paulson's Treasury Department, Neel Kashkari, as "a mistake."

It was Mr Paulson, in July, 2008, who told WaMu's CEO -- in one of the few calls made to or accepted from him by Paulson -- that he should have sold the bank the previous April to JPM, with which there was no paucity of phone calls. It was Paulson who did not allow WaMu protection from naked short selling, a protection accorded other, select financial institutions; and it was Paulson who made sure the bank was stolen prior to the availability of TARP funds. It was, btw, Goldamn Sachs that was contracted to locate suitors for WaMu.

Wall St is a small community of thieves who wrap themselves in the flag when it is expedient to do so, but they are the terrorists from whom those not in the community have the most to fear.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 113
At this date last year: 155
Total run in 2016: 155
In 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269